When I say "Synology," the first thing that comes to mind is personal servers, NAS, and lots of cool things you can keep stored on your own "cloud" to access anywhere and without trusting any company with your data. Now Synology is using its expertise in building personal servers and apps to introduce an instant messaging application.

In a world where privacy is a big concern and end-to-end encryption is more and more important, having your chat app run off your own server saves you the trouble of researching whom you can and can't trust with your data. It may not be ideal for communicating with everyone you know, but it's an interesting solution for the friends and family you trust, especially if you already have a Synology server.

Google really, really wants you to pre-order a pixel, or at least to be aware that it exists. If you head to the Google homepage, you very well may see a popup encouraging you to pre-order the Pixel. Forget for a minute that most variants of the Pixel are sold out—Google is getting as much attention as possible for this phone.

CyanogenMod 13, based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, was formally released back in March, but it's only just arriving for some devices, in the form of nightlies. The most notable of these devices are probably the original HTC One and the Wileyfox Spark, plus the Spark X - the Spark's bigger, more powerful brother.

The HTC One is being bumped up from CM12.1, which was based on 5.1 Lollipop, while the Spark and Spark X are receiving their first taste of the custom ROM, albeit not their first Cyanogen flavored taste though, since they run the in-house Cyanogen OS, which has recently been killed off.

Bless you, Xposed Framework. Thou art the last refuge of power users whose hardware has been forsaken by manufacturer and ROM developer alike. The root-enabled tool has a new module that back-ports a bunch of Android Nougat features to earlier versions of the OS. It's called AndroidN-ify, and the latest update includes a tweak that exposes Google's fancy new voice-controlled Assistant search tool to users on Android 6.0. An earlier build.prop tweak allowed Android 7.0 users to try Assistant on non-Pixel phones, which won't be officially supported when the new hardware launches.

The original Pebble predates Android Wear, and since the first model, the Pebble line has continued to improve and develop. One of their newest watches, the Pebble Time Round, has dropped in price significantly on Amazon. It's now only $113 for the Silver model on Amazon, almost half off from its original price of $199.

The Time Round has many of the features of their Pebble Time wearable, with the notable exception of having a circular screen. The watch has an always-on color e-paper display, giving it an estimated battery life of two days. It also has a step and sleep tracker, downloadable watchfaces, and of course the massive library of Pebble applications.

Security has been a hot topic on Android for many years, particularly as smartphones take on increasingly significant roles both at home and at work. A single device acts as your main form of communication, contains personal photos and confidential documents, and may even have access to your finances. Google and other companies have made significant investments in time and money to ensure these devices are very hard to break into. However, a vulnerability was recently discovered in some phones that compromises important security measures and opens devices up to various types of attacks. The worst part is that it was created intentionally by a manufacturing partner contracted to build the phones, and the OEMs that designed the phone had no idea.

Google's improved quick reply notifications in Android 7.0 can make replying to messages easier, but it's still tedious to manage multiple simultaneous chats. That's doubly true of they're taking place in different apps. Flychat aims to make it easier by bundling all (or at least most) of your messaging apps into floating bubbles. They're chat heads, basically.

We're still tearing down all the applications from the Pixel system dump, and the included Google Phone 5.1 app is certainly worth talking about. Without further ado, let's dive in!

New call UI

The first major change is the brand new Call UI, which is now a translucent blue shade over your wallpaper. The new interface looks a bit like the iOS dialer, with large buttons and a circular Caller ID icon at the top.

With the launch of Google's Pixel devices, consumers have to make the choice to buy from Verizon, the Google Store, or Project Fi. Unlocked phones sold outside the carrier sometimes don't work with carrier-specific features, like Wi-Fi calling. Thankfully, both Verizon and Google have confirmed to Android Police that all Pixel phones will work with Wi-Fi calling and HD voice on Verizon.

Google's statement says that even Pixel phones purchased through Project Fi will work fine with those features. This essentially means there is no reason to buy a Pixel phone through Verizon, as they will work identically. Buying the Pixel from them actually has some downsides, namely the locked bootloader.

Google announced the Pixel early this month in partnership with Verizon. While you can get the phone from the Google Store, Verizon will be the only carrier that will sell the phone directly. Our collective flashback to the Galaxy Nexus mess was seemingly confirmed when it was revealed that Verizon would be managing the system updates for the Pixel. Now, Verizon says those updates won't be delayed.